


Like Father

by VoteForNuke



Series: 2020 MGS Summer Games [8]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26150650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoteForNuke/pseuds/VoteForNuke
Summary: Frank questions, fondly remembers, and revokes Big Boss' place in his life.
Series: 2020 MGS Summer Games [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884223
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Like Father

The only air Frank could find was on the kitchen floor. His cheek was pressed to tile, hoping to soothe his whiskey blush. He only had an hour before meeting Big Boss for dinner. Something about sushi. That guy loved sushi. Raw flesh, pink and chilled. Frank bit his lip, sick. It was just the booze, he lied to himself. It was just the booze. 

He’d never been much of a drinker until Mozambique. Until Naomi. Until he realized how blood cakes under fingernails and stains cotton uniforms. Until he realized that maybe a father’s love should come with a warning label. Hazardous material; mind altering substance. Paint up the fire diamond with whatever spelled out ‘run and run fast, get the fuck out’. Maybe that’s why he insisted on Naomi calling him her brother. Big brother Frankie, who sent her to nice boarding schools and horse riding summer camps, who took meticulous care to not smell of cigarette smoke or cheap booze when he visited. 

No, all that was for after. He’d dropped fifty dollars at the Last Call spirits and smokes, haunted by her smiling face. Her sad eyes. Some people remarked that they could see the relation, ‘it’s in your eyes’. Sad, sad eyes. Hopeless orphan eyes, searching for a sign they wouldn’t be able to read, anyways. Frank prayed to whoever would grant it that she would outgrow those sad eyes. 

There was no future in them. Naomi had a future, he wanted her to know. She had more than he ever did, and that’s what fathers did for their children. Or, brothers for their sisters. Naomi had more than Frank, and Frank had more than Big Boss. Though, there was a crucial difference. A detail that caught in Frank’s stomach when he thought of anything but love for Big Boss. 

Naomi hadn’t been orphaned by war. She’d been orphaned by him, by his animalistic daze. Her parents ran, and like a hound bred so well it was a victim to instinct, he chased after them. He spilled their blood, mixed it with mud and shit and garbage. Their screams, their begging fell on deaf ears, overwhelmed with the thrill of the kill. Then, he went to the river to wash himself, and found a starving girl cupping dirty water in her hands. She had nothing except for her parents’ love, and he ripped that away. Frank shuddered on the floor, turning to face to grind his nose into the tile. 

Big Boss had been his savior. Heavenly and holy, Christ with an M16. Frank could recall the day of his rescue to the finest detail. How the dirt felt between his toes, the bird song just outside of his prison, the song that the Knife Man had been humming––-right before a bullet tore through his throat. 

He could remember Boss opening the door to his prison, crouched for the attack with his gun lifted, then pausing. Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, he reached out to what was left of little Frank. The other men shrank back at his appearance, grimaced openly, or swore in disbelief. They had cut off his nose, his ears, a gap of teeth exposed by his cleft lip. It might not have been so grizzly to those Marines, hadn’t Frank not been four or six. Somewhere around there, he didn’t know his true birthdate. 

He remembered how Boss held him on his hip, like it was the most natural thing, ignored the brutality of his face and instead combed at his dirty hair. Pale grey, left in tufts. He remembered that Boss’ touch was the first that didn’t hurt. Large, gentle hands that offered him tropical candy bars and washed the grime from his face. They never grabbed for him, never balled into fists. Boss was the first person to ever show him love, let alone kindness. True, selfless love. When Frank was growing up in American foster care, he got a Christmas present every year from Santa. Every year, until Boss came for him in ‘84. Later he would learn that it was Kaz sending the largest chunk of those. Boss had been comatose for nearly nine years, after all. Right? 

It was hard to keep track of the lies meant for him and the lies meant for others. The truth kept him going, though. The truth that Big Boss loved him, despite what he turned Frank into. He did love him. Selflessly. Who else would take an orphan under their wing, pay for facial reconstructive surgery, teach him the ways of life and how to balance in the ugly truths. Who else would raise a child to kill, raise a child to stray so far from the most basic concepts of humanity that he was a mad dog in the streets. Rabid, drooling, snapping; someone needed to put him down. 

That was love, right? To love someone was to strip them down and build someone new. Frank remembered his life before Boss. Not well, but decently enough. He liked poetry and books about men lost in the woods. He used to draw pictures of people kissing in his notebooks, then rip them up in embarrassment. He used to get in fights with his foster siblings and fight the urge to cry, not kill. 

He used to be a kid. Maybe Big Boss saw something more in him. Maybe he saw his potential to be a killer. It was a shame to waste your true potential, so he let Big Boss mold him. Eagerly, in fact. Frank could remember posing in the mirror with his sword, with guns, with blood dripping down his chin. 

Like now. He had to get ready to meet Boss. He had to wipe the blood from his nose, clear the bottom shelf liquor from his mind. If he showed up like this, Boss would get suspicious, and then his attack cat would start poking around. Or rather, poking around again. That guy could read minds, Frank was sure, had an uncanny ability to summon when Frank’s mind strayed to ideas of Russia. Big Boss’ forbidden land. The only place a deserter like him would be safe. 

Frank turned off the tap when water overflowed the sink, splashing across the broken tiles of his rental’s floor. He held his own head under the water, counting backwards from fifty. Big Boss really did love him. He had a plan for Frank, and Frank was an ungrateful child to refuse it. After all, if he hadn’t killed Naomi’s parents, she would have starved to death. She would have been a casualty of war. Now she was at a boarding school, riding horses and learning French and playing violin. It was a better life than what her birth parents could have provided, just as Big Boss provided for Frank. If Frank’s mother hadn’t left him on the streets, he would have starved, she would have remarried and his stepfather would have beaten him, he would have been a casualty of war and not the son of it. Not the cog that made it at all spin. 

That was bullshit. Frank pulled his jacket on. That was such bullshit. Big Boss really had him choking on the Kool-Aid, sick with it, in fact. So sick that as Frank stood on the street, thinking of fading into Russia, he was almost trembling with guilt. Big Boss was his father, how could he turn on him?

Frank was supposed to be his son, how could he strip him of humanity and be proud of it? 

When Big Boss returned to Outer Heaven, Frank would slip away to Russia. Naomi would be fine. She was safe from Big Boss. He hoped she would forget him, or at the very least, hate him. A sleek black car slowed down, and Frank forced out a steady breath. When the car stopped, he opened the door and slid in, trying to mimic a relaxed man. 

“You okay?” Boss asked after a moment of watching him with a frown. 

“It’s just the cold.” Frank sniffled loudly. “I’m not used to snow.” He’d better learn to love it.

Boss watched him for a moment more before merging into traffic. “Don’t get sick on me,” he said. “Ocelot called. We have a change in plans. I know it’s not your typical mission, but you’ll need to play POW.” 

Frank kept his face smooth. “Whose?” 

With a lop-sided smile, Boss answered. “Outer Heaven’s.”


End file.
